


Carnevale

by anactoriatalksback



Series: His true name [1]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Anal Sex, Crossdressing, First Time, Identity Porn, M/M, My contribution to James Fitzjames' birthday celebrations, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:28:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25552828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anactoriatalksback/pseuds/anactoriatalksback
Summary: Venice, 1845. Carnevale. James Fitzjames is at a private masked ball in his prettiest gown and an elaborate red wig. Where he meets a stranger with a soft brogue, who makes a very specific request.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames, Implied Francis Crozier/Sir James Clark Ross (one-sided)
Series: His true name [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1851658
Comments: 52
Kudos: 92





	Carnevale

**Author's Note:**

  * For [icicaille](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icicaille/gifts).



> The fabulous and talented icicaille generously gave me three prompts when I whined about being bereft of inspiration for James Fitzjames' Birthday Extravaganza.
> 
> The prompt I seized on was as follows: James topping in a dress*. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this, love.
> 
> *I will almost certainly be mangling the other prompts in the none-too-distant future.

‘ _Benvenuti_ , Giacomo!’

‘ _Grazie_ , Emanuele,’ says James, accepting his host’s hand as he steps off his gondola. The lanthorn throws twisting shadows as they make their way up the path to the Palazzo di Aosta. Emanuele swears up and down that he’s a member of the House of Savoy, and James has better manners – and better sense – than to inquire too particularly into another man’s forebears.

The city is warm: not the clammy chokehold of summer, but a balmy ripeness that plays with the hair at the nape of James’s neck and whispers of open collars and bare feet. Emanuele’s house has the self-important bustle of a country house on the eve of a ball. James smiles and holds the door open for a little maid scurrying past with eyes lowered, terrified of being seen.

Emanuele is a member of the Sardinian Navy, and James is unclear precisely what his connection is to the younger Barrow, but when Barrow Minor could not accept Emanuele’s invitation to his family’s private feast for _Carnevale_ , James was only too willing to step into the breach. He is told his only function is to make merry and try not to fall into the canals, and he is happy to promise both.

On the night of the feast, torches burn brightly, lighting the path to the palazzo. James looks out on a tossing sea of celebrants in dominos and masks. There are Pierrots and Harlequins and Floras and the occasional plague apothecary. In the mirror, James’s own eyes glitter strangely at him behind his mask and the torchlight catches the red-gold in his elaborate wig. He has left his shoulders bare over the gathers and scaffolding of his velvet gown, and his face is innocent alike of powder and patch.

He strolls through corridors and out onto the courtyard, a glass of Valpolicella in his hand (not his first). He bumps shoulders with revellers and smiles back when they smile at him, feeling loose-limbed and delightfully irresponsible. He bows sometimes, and sometimes he drops a courtesy.

He ricochets from one such celebrant – James’s third Harlequin of the night – into another, in a dark blue domino this time, whose arms come up to catch him.

‘ _Perdone_ ,’ says the man, his brogue making the formula seem fresh, even raw, ‘er … _signora_?’

‘ _Prego_ ,’ says James, and straightens. He makes no move to leave the circle of the stranger’s arms.

‘ _Signore_ ,’ amends the stranger. ‘Er …’ he squints up – not very far, at this distance they’re nearly of a height – ‘ _lei … er … parla inglese_?’

James nods. The man sags in relief. ‘Thank Christ for that. You’d hardly call me a sparkling conversationalist at the best of times.’ He smiles ruefully at James. ‘I’ve barely mastered English, you ken.’

He has a gap between his front teeth. James steps forward, enough that the boning of his stays presses against the buttons of the stranger’s domino. He bends to whisper into the man’s ear, affecting an accent (Portuguese, but he’s guessing the man is unlikely to be over-nice about the precise provenance of his speech): ‘And is it conversation you are here for…’ and he draws the last word out enough that he can hear the man take in a breath: ‘ _signore_?’

He draws back enough to look at the man’s face, or as much as he can see behind the mask. Wisps of hair – red, though lighter than James’s own borrowed mane – poke out beneath his hat. His eyes are probably blue, though in the leaping torchlight they could be anything, any sort of earnest searching lovely thing.

The man is staring at James, tongue passing over his lips. His eyes move restlessly over James’s throat, his collar-bones, his hair, back to his face, and his hair again. He shakes his head slowly.

James smiles at him. ‘ _Ebbene_ ,’ he says, and steps back. His hand finds the stranger’s. Large, warm, palms calloused and fingers spatulate. A familiar sort of grip; is James about to belly with a fellow sailor? The man stands still as James slides their fingers together. His lips and cheeks look a little flushed. James thinks if he peeled that domino and mask off him, that pink would radiate all the way down to his chest, and he takes his lower lip between his teeth at the thought.

He tugs at the man’s hand gently and he dips his head: a brief acknowledgement of a command. They set off up the path, the man staying close to James: shielding him from the other revellers, James observes, and he lets his hand tighten on the other’s. They share another look and James wants, badly, to take the mask off him: even the set of his mouth tells a story. James wants to be somewhere where he can trace the abashed but defiant twist of his lips, take every one of those pale lashes against his own mouth.

They pass into the palazzo without incident, the attention of the household being given over entirely to the courtyard and grounds. James leads the man up the stairs to his bedchamber and shuts the door. There is one lamp burning low in the room, sending out a shifting eldritch shadow and making the room darker.

The stranger is standing precisely where James left him, half in, half out of the scant light cast by the near-extinguished torch. He is standing loosely at attention, James sees, and he wants, urgently, to have him out of that domino in which he looks so ill-at-ease. He takes a step towards him and the stranger says ‘What’s your name?’

His voice is gentle and the soft rich ‘r’ in ‘your’ gives the question power. Names have power too, thinks James, especially here in this damp and pagan place where James is being someone else, or being exclusively and unavoidably himself. He says, dropping his voice: ‘What would you like to name me?’

The man’s eyes move to James’s wig – a halo of scarlet around his head, James knows from his preparations this evening – and James sees his chest move in and out. ‘James,’ he says.

James’s eyes widen and he takes an involuntary step back. He thinks back quickly – they ran into nobody on their way in, nobody called him by name anywhere in the stranger’s hearing, how – and then he looks again at the man. His eyes are turned inwards, and his mouth has twisted again: a self-lacerating slash of a thing.

His eyes turn back to James and he says ‘You need not, if you prefer. But if you’d indulge me … James.’

His voice lingers on James’s name and makes it something fragile and precious, a secret too hallowed for rough winds and dirty air. James mouths it back to the man. ‘James, then,’ he says, giving it his borrowed Portuguese lilt. ‘And you?’

The man looks at him and James can see him swiftly work through a complex series of calculations – oh, if the mask were off, he could catalogue every single flicker and twitch of that lovely face! – before he says ‘Frank.’

‘Frank,’ says James, and moves forward. His fingers move to the strings of the man – of _Frank’s_ – mask.

‘ _Permesso_?,’ he says, and Frank nods. He undoes the strings and throws the mask to the bed.

He was right: the face before his is lined and mobile and has a deep, melancholy kindness that James wants to set his tongue to and lick up like a cat. Every twitch of his sandy eyebrows, every pucker of his mouth, bespeaks a hundred racing thoughts.

James reaches up to thumb at those eyebrows. He watches Frank’s eyes flutter shut, his pale lashes quivering. He touches the thin skin beneath his eyes – even the pouches there are expressive, seeming to deepen and shudder as James traces over them – and skims down to the corners of Frank’s mouth.

‘ _Permesso_?,’ says James again, bending forward, and again Frank nods. He holds his breath as James’s mouth descends, but James’s destination is not his lips. Not yet, at any rate. He brushes his mouth softly over Frank’s eyelids and takes his delicate eyelashes between his lips.

One of Frank’s hands lands, unsure, on James’s waist. He pulls away to smile reassuringly at him. ‘ _Prego_ ,’ he says, and places his own hand on Frank’s. Frank shivers, his fingers flexing against the boning. ‘ _Cosi_ ,’ says James, and presses Frank’s hand harder. Frank shivers again, letting his hand wander. His warmth leaches through the velvet and whalebone.

James’s thumbs beat, gently, at the edges of Frank’s lips. He opens his mouth to ask for permission, only to be forestalled by Frank saying ‘ _Per favore_.’ The ‘r’ is the soft one of his native accent. He shapes the words unsurely, his voice ruffling the words like a cat stroked the wrong way. It’s James’s turn to shiver, now.

He bends his head and brushes his lips against Frank’s. Carefully, very carefully. Frank sighs and his lips part. That little gap between his teeth, visible in the half-dark. James flicks his tongue into that little cleft and smiles at Frank’s jolt of surprise.

‘ _Carinho_ ,’ he says and feels his own eyes slam open at the slip – he’s not meant to be Portuguese, not to Frank, not really – but Frank gives no indication of having observed. His hand is charting a course now, roaming over James’s back, palm warm now against the top of his spine. James gasps against Frank’s mouth as two thick fingers curl around the little bump at the base of his neck, then trace upwards to the little curls at his nape.

 _The wig_ , James realises, _he’s making for the wig_. He pulls off and wraps his fingers around Frank’s hand, directing it a little lower. ‘No,’ he says, but brings the offending hand to his lips to press a kiss of apology to its palm.

Frank is pink. James wants to bite him. ‘My apologies.’

James kisses Frank’s hand again and releases it. ‘There are other places,’ he says, ‘that you can touch me.’

Frank’s lips part and his hand moves in James’s. Slips down from his lips to his chin and then his throat.

James feels his own eyes shut. He swallows and feels Frank’s thumb graze his Adam’s apple.

‘You look…’ says Frank, a quiet wondering whisper. James’s eyes open and he finds Frank gazing at him. ‘May I kiss you,’ he swallows, ‘James?’

 _Teach me how you say it_ , thinks James, _teach me how you say my name_. He nods, and bends again. Frank’s lips on his are sweet and tentative. As though this man has been refused before and is leaving himself room for retreat. It is only when James pulls him closer that he becomes more insistent, his tongue licking past James’s lips, discovering and taking.

James moans into Frank’s mouth. Such hunger, he thinks, such unabashed hunger. As though Frank would crawl into James if he could, and oh what a welcome he’d find. James would keep Frank’s sweet weathered face safe, his soft ‘r’s, his beautiful eyes and his lovely pale lashes, he’d house him and feed him and shelter him and make sure he never wanted for anything.

Frank catches the sound and mirrors it back to him. When they part, Frank’s lips are swollen and reddened – as James’s own must be, he imagines. He looks wonderingly at James – who has made this lovely halting gentle man doubt himself? James doesn’t know whether to run them through or thank them fasting – and reaches out a trembling hand to brush the crease by James’s mouth.

James turns and catches Frank’s fingers in his mouth. He watches Frank’s eyes darken as he sucks, gently. Lets his teeth scrape the pads. Lets himself pull off with a particularly wet sound just so he can watch Frank swallow. He reaches out for Frank again and pulls him in for another kiss, letting his hands slide down so that he can knead purposefully at his arse, a firm and satisfying handful.

Frank gasps into James’s mouth and James sucks at Frank’s tongue. He moves his hands to the front of Frank’s domino, searching for the buttons and clasps that will make it fall away. He makes a noise of protest as Frank tears his mouth away, and Frank cocks an eyebrow at him: a wry gesture that makes James reach for him again.

‘Shhhh, little one,’ he says, ‘you’ll be wanting me to do this properly, now.’

James clenches his fists by his side, but nods. Frank is smiling at him: a fond thing that deepens the wrinkles by his eyes and shows off the gap between his teeth – that heartbreaking thing that James wants to plant a flag in. Fitzjames’ Gully, he’d call it. Discovered by James Fitzjames in the weeks before Shrove Tuesday of 1845. So that future explorers – must there be future explorers? – will see and will know who saw before them.

Frank undoes the buttons and lets the robe fall away. Underneath is a linen shirt, a plain waistcoat and trousers. James gestures to him to doff the rest and Frank’s lips twitch.

‘You’re impatient, lad,’ he says. James shrugs and makes a ‘ _Well_?’ gesture, and then thinks better of it. He goes to Frank. ‘ _Permesso_?,’ he says again and Frank nods. James’s fingers slide through the buttons of the waistcoat and stroke it off Frank’s shoulders. He runs his nose up Frank’s neck and hears his breath stop and then shudder to a start again. His fingers pluck at Frank’s waistband and Frank obliges, pulling his shirt out.

James has to detach himself from Frank’s neck to let him pull his shirt off, and Frank stands for a minute under James’s gaze. He is meeting James’s eyes, but James is beginning to read him: he is unsure, and trying to shield James from that knowledge.

James goes to him. ‘Strong,’ he says, because it is true. Frank is compact and broad of chest. He can likely haul cargo long distances without tiring, and thinks nothing of it. His shoulders are freckled, James notices with delight. He bends and curls his tongue around one, absorbing Frank’s shudder.

He tends to each freckle he finds with exacting care, and thinks that he wants to drag this man out into the sun and commit to memory every new shade his cheeks flush, and then tumble him into bed and kiss every new freckle he finds.

Frank’s chest is moving in and out rapidly. James finds a nipple and rubs his thumb over it, delighting in Frank’s hoarse cry. Frank twists his head, buries his nose in the place where James’s throat meets his shoulder. He opens his mouth and begins to suck. James shivers, curls in closer to Frank, Frank whose fingers tighten convulsively at James’s back and pull him in.

When James lifts his head, Frank is watching him. He lifts his hand to brush, lightly, at James’s cloth mask. James makes no move: if Frank wishes to remove the mask, James will not prevent him. He thinks he might like this man to see him.

Frank lets his hand fall, and James does not stop him. He reaches for Frank’s waistband and looks him squarely in the eye. ‘ _Permesso_?,’ he says and Frank swallows and nods. James unbuttons him and pushes his trousers down, then runs his fingers lightly over the top of his smallclothes. Frank lets out a choked sound at the touch, and James raises his eyes.

He keeps his gaze locked on Frank’s as he lowers himself to his knees. His skirts ripple and fan out as he goes like a pool of green ink – James knows this, he’s rehearsed and paid careful attention – but Frank pays them no mind. He’s staring into James’s eyes as though he expects him to vanish if he looks away or blinks. James knows the feeling.

James moves his hands so his thumbs are pressed against Frank’s hipbones – cushioned solidly with flesh and sinew – and he considers the bulge in Frank’s smallclothes. Gives in to the impulse to rub his cheek against the warm flesh and smiles at the sound that Frank makes. Smooths his hands once over the front and unbuttons him, pushing his smalls down to the floor once he is done.

Frank’s prick, stiffening visibly under James’s gaze, is out now. Like the man himself, it is sturdy, of a thickness that James wants to feel in his mouth, weighing down his tongue. James looks back up past Frank’s chest, moving swiftly in and out, and into his eyes. He licks his lips, making no effort whatsoever to conceal his hunger. Then he takes Frank into his mouth.

He feels Frank jolt and ignores him, concentrating on the flesh quickening and coming alive beneath his touch. He runs his tongue over the head, savouring the taste of him. He brings a hand up to grip the base, frigging him as he opens his throat and bobs up and down. He relishes the stretch of his jaw, the sense that Frank is making demands upon him and he is meeting them.

A heavy hand falls on his shoulder, the other twitches helplessly by his neck. James realises that Frank wants to fist his hair but is mindful of his earlier veto. He thinks, for a moment, what it might be like to cast the wig aside, guide Frank’s hands to his hair, let him pull and push him the way he wants. But the hand on his neck rises, trailing trembling fingers along the curve of his throat, to rest against the corner of James’s mouth.

James hums around his mouthful and tilts his head so that Frank can feel the outline of his own prick through the skin of James’s cheek. Frank takes in a shuddering breath, thumb beating against the skin. James thinks, for a moment, that he could take that thumb and slide it into his mouth alongside his prick. At the thought, James sucks on Frank and his hips jerk forward, cock slamming insistently against the back of James’s throat. James chokes, unprepared, tears starting in his eyes.

‘Oh, Christ, Christ, I’m sorry, I – are you - ’

James pulls off, smacking his lips. ‘ _Si_ ,’ he says, liking the hoarseness of his voice. Frank’s eyes widen and then he is crouching over James, mouth pressed to his. James arches up to meet the kiss, letting Frank suck on his tongue and moan at the taste of himself on him.

When they pull apart, Frank asks on a pleading rasp: ‘What’s your name?’

James smiles and reminds him: ‘James.’

‘I see,’ says Frank, and the shadows in his eyes deepen so that James wishes for a moment that he had offered something – anything – else. ‘James, then.’

James strokes the backs of Frank’s pale strong thighs and bends to give the base of his prick a kiss – an apology for what he does not know, an attempt to take that look off Frank’s face – and Frank’s hand tightens on his shoulder. ‘No, I - ’ and James can hear him force out the name, ‘James, don’t – you’ll make me spend.’

James looks up at Frank and nods. ‘ _Lo so_ ,’ he says, and licks up the length of his cock.

‘No, I mean – _Christ_.’

James looks back up at Frank, one hand working his prick. Frank’s hand moves from James’s shoulder to his arm and he squeezes. ‘Up,’ he says, and James obliges, rising to his feet.

‘Will you,’ says Frank, and swallows. ‘I want you to take me.’

James stands still for a moment, his own cock twitching beneath his skirts. Carefully, he says ‘This is what you want?’

Frank looks at him. As the torch flickers, his eyes look molten for a moment. At length, he nods.

James slides his hand to the back of Frank’s neck and brings him in for a kiss. Frank’s hands tighten at James’s waist as he sucks and bites at James’s lips. He growls when James lifts his head to suck in breath and pulls him in impatiently, hips moving in an imperative circle. He gropes for James’s arse and snarls at the bustle that gets in his way. James soothes him with a kiss, sliding one hand between the two of them down to Frank’s lovely eager prick. Frank jolts in his arms and pulls away to pant, wetly, against the join of James’s neck and shoulder.

‘ _Adesso_?,’ says James, fingertips trailing against the fine hair at the base of Frank’s neck. ‘Now?’

Frank shivers and nods. James lets his hand wander down along Frank’s shoulder down the length of his arm and then circles his wrist. ‘Come.’

He leads Frank to his bed and gestures to him to sit down. Frank does so, gaze turned up to his. His eyes are a very dark blue in this light, searching and trusting at once. James takes his hand and presses his lips to the heel of the palm.

‘How do you usually prefer this?’ says James.

Frank tilts his head, holding his gaze. ‘There is no usually. I’ve never done this.’ The colour rises in his cheeks. ‘Never with a man.’

James’s breath stops for a moment. He allows himself a moment of savage triumph, burying his face in Frank’s hand so that he will not see, before taking a deep breath, schooling his face and saying ‘Then you should choose. On your back, or on hands and knees?’

Frank’s eyes jump to James’s when the first choice is put to him, and James wills him to select it. He wants to see that lovely mobile face when he slides into him, wants to press kiss after kiss to those fragile eyelashes, every freckle on his chest and line on his brow. Wants to swallow his groans into his own mouth and feed them back to him.

But he can see from the set of Frank’s mouth and the deepening of the pouches under his eyes that he is about to deny himself. He sighs and says ‘Hands and knees.’

James chews at the inside of his cheek before venturing: ‘You are certain?’

Frank’s eyes fly to his before he says, gently but with an impossible weight that James wants to snatch away from him: ‘Yes. Yes, this is best.’

James cannot trust himself to speak, so he nods and tries his absolute damnedest not to pout. He does not quite know if he succeeds when Frank cocks a pale eyebrow at him, but he ventures no more.

James crawls to his trunk and rummages about, emerging with a carefully-packed bottle of almond oil from a _souq_ in Alexandria, bought at precisely the time that Ibrahim Pasha had put a rather flattering price on his head for that business with the Ottomans. He’d emerged with both the bottle and his head, but he admits it was a close-run thing.

When he turns back to Frank, solid and pink and white and gold in the gloom, he thinks _Well worth it_.

He goes to the bed. Frank’s eyes are on him as he approaches, as he pulls up his skirts enough to let him crawl onto the bed.

‘We can do it this way, if you prefer,’ says James, trying to sound even. Frank, spread out before him, cock jutting proudly against his thigh, makes his mouth water.

Frank smiles, a small sad twitch of the lips, and shakes his head. He turns on his hands and knees, and throws a quick look over his shoulder, forehead wrinkled. The habitual expression of a man used to being relied on, and afraid of letting down those who depend on him. ‘Is this all right?’

‘Perfect,’ says James, taking in the strong thighs, dusted with red-gold hair and freckles – more freckles! He walks on his knees behind Frank and places his hands on his pink rump. ‘If you would spread these for me…’

Frank’s back tenses before he lets out a determined breath and shuffles his knees a little apart. ‘ _Cosi_ ,’ says James, and strokes his fundament, a gentling motion. Frank shivers, a ripple down the length of his spine. James drops a kiss of approbation on the curve of his arse and is met with another shiver. And then James sees that the pink cheeks beneath his hands are dusted with freckles and is overcome with the urge to mouth at one, and then another, tracing a path with his lips and tongue. Frank is trembling as James charts his course, little bitten-off sounds from his throat.

His breath is uneven as James’s mouth finds its way to the crease between his cheeks. James parts them with his thumbs and presses a kiss to the dusty pink pucker, smiling against Frank’s arse at his gasp. He wants to hear that sound again, and does so when he licks a flat wet stripe along Frank’s crease.

‘J – what – _Christ_.’

James hums and applies himself. Long swipes up and down Frank’s cleft, until he’s slick and shining. Delicate concentric circles, narrowing closer and closer to Frank’s hole until James makes a stiff point with his tongue and pushes inside. There is a disbelieving noise from Frank at this, growing in pitch as James thrusts further inside.

James tightens the grip on his thumbs on Frank’s pale pink arse as he explores. He works his jaw, craning to reach further, know more, lavish Frank with the greedy curiosity his beautiful strong body deserves. He lets himself moan and slurp and suck, lets Frank feels the spittle running down his chin and rubbing off on his arse and thighs. Frank is trembling, letting out a stream of garbled curses. He is pushing onto James’s face, helpless little circling motions, and his prick is red and stiff.

At length, James lifts his head. He rubs his cheek and chin against the flesh of Frank’s inner thigh, feeling Frank shudder again at the slide of his spittle against his tender skin. He circles Frank’s hole with his finger before slipping in the tip, to Frank’s sharp indrawn breath. He pushes in a little further – it goes easily, James’s tongue has done its work – and probes further.

‘Oh _God_.’

‘Should I stop?,’ asks James, not stopping. Frank shakes his head vehemently. James smiles and pulls his finger out, shushing Frank’s grunt of protest by sliding two fingers in. Easy, again – Frank is wet and hot and open enough for this. James widens Frank inside by gradual increments, advancing and retreating. In. Out. In again. He searches for the place inside him that will – ah.

‘Good _Christ_! What - ’

‘There it is,’ says James fondly. He strokes the place once, twice, watching the arch of Frank’s spine and his shocked-sounding moans. Withdraws his fingers. Reaches for the oil and coats his fingers liberally before knitting three together and introducing them. Frank groans at the stretch, a rasping luxuriant sound. James works meticulously, flirting with Frank’s inner walls, stroking his rim from the outside with his other hand before searching out the place again and beating a ruthless tattoo on it until Frank is thrashing and cursing and rocking back on James’s hand.

‘Jaysus, _Jaysus_.’

James eases his fingers out and presses a soft kiss to Frank’s hot rim. He lifts a knee enough to reach for the hem of his skirts and pull them up. His prick is eager, straining forward towards Frank’s flesh. James takes the oil and greases himself, trying to remain clinical but failing entirely to keep from groaning out load at the touch of his own slick hand on his flesh.

‘Yes,’ says Frank, on a sympathetic groan, ‘yes, Christ, are you touching yourself, lad?’

James sighs in assent. He asks ‘do you still - ?’

Frank throws him a look over his shoulder, the look of a man used to having orders obeyed. ‘Are you having difficulty with instruction, boyo?’

James shakes his head. He shuffles closer to Frank and lets his skirts hush over the heated skin of his back. He takes his prick and circles it around Frank’s hole, watching with delight as Frank shudders.

‘Oh, _God_.’

James does it again, watching Frank’s lashes flutter against his red cheek. And then he scissors his fingers at the base of his cock and slides home. Frank lets out an almost outraged-sounding gasp, echoed in James’s own throat. He never knew this sort of sensation existed. Nobody ever told him. Someone should have told him, he thinks, someone should have told him.

Frank inside is hot and wet and tight, clinging to James. He holds himself still for a moment, or two, or twenty. He wants Frank to get used to the weight and the stretch of him, and oh God he needs to get used to the sensation of being held and protected in Frank’s all-shielding heat.

He hears Frank’s voice, a groaning rasp. ‘Move, man.’

‘Yes,’ he hears his own voice say, shakily, ‘I – I wanted to - ’

‘Move.’ A command, a threat, or a plea.

James lets his head fall to the skin between Frank’s shoulder-blades. He mouths there, licking up the salt of Frank’s sweat, before straightening and thrusting once. Frank grunts, a pleasantly winded sound. James tries again, and punches another from Frank’s throat. He circles his hips, grinds until the hair at the base of his prick is rasping against Frank’s tender skin. He reaches for Frank’s hips, pulls him back onto his cock, hammering into him as he feels Frank growl and arch and shove back, knuckles white against the bedspread. Frank is clamping down on him, clawing him back every time he pulls out, moaning at the slap of James’s bollocks against his soft skin. James can feel the heat build in his belly, an inexorable tide pushing its way out of his body.

Frank can sense it too. ‘Yes,’ he snarls, clenching down on James, ‘yes, do it, come on, do it.’

‘Frank, _Frank_ \- ’

‘Yes, come on, I want it, come on.’

James spends into Frank, long and hard. He slumps panting against Frank’s naked back, damp with sweat. When he has come to himself, he finds Frank frigging himself desperately, hand flying over his neglected cock.

‘No,’ he says, covering Frank’s hand with his own and stilling him. Frank sighs and lets his hand fall away. He hisses when James’s slick hand closes over his prick and James drops a kiss to the base of his neck. He sits up on his haunches, pulling Frank up so that he can pull lazily at his cock with one hand and explore his lovely body with the other.

He urges Frank to let his head loll back on his shoulder and then brushes his hand down Frank’s mouth, bitten red, down his throat, his broad chest, his stiff pink wonderfully responsive nipples, the pale freckled thighs, spread for James’s pleasure. His prick, beginning to dribble in James’s hand – a restrained showing; Frank’s not much of a leaker, unlike James – and a wonderfully hot and demanding weight.

Frank groans as James’s hand slides down to his bollocks, weighing and rolling and squeezing them. His eyes are pinched shut, his lips pulled back from his teeth. James noses into Frank’s hair – soft, damp with sweat, utterly delicious – and sighs as he continues to play. He draws his hand up so that he’s palming Frank’s prick again, his other arm tightening around Frank as he shudders. He swipes his thumb over the slit, capturing the clear fluid and spreading it over the length of Frank’s cock. He thinks he’d do this for hours if he could, or at least until his own spent body replenishes itself enough that he could plug up Frank with his cock and frig him until James can feel him clench down on him as he spills.

But Frank is trembling, a fine tremor running down the whole length of him. His fists are clenched on his thighs and his lips are working. No words are passing them: James thinks this is not a man used to asking for things.

‘Will you spend?’ James says instead into his ear. ‘Will you spend for me?’

Frank shudders, violently. James leans his forehead against the side of Frank’s head, his mask scraping at the fine skin over his temples. ‘Will you?’ he asks again, and relishes the plea in his own voice. ‘Will you spend for me?’

And with fierce joy he feels Frank seize and spill in long hot white gouts over his frantically-flying hand, with a desperate ‘ _James_ ’ on his lips.

James continues to work Frank until he softens and one of his hands comes up to cover James’s.

There is silence then, broken only by the sounds of their breathing returning to normal. James presses soft kisses into Frank’s hair as he comes back, slowly, to himself, and then extricates himself – not without reluctance – to fetch a cloth to wipe them down. But when he reaches for Frank’s thighs and bollocks Frank forestalls him, reaching out a hand for the cloth.

‘I’ll do it,’ he says, ‘you needn’t put yourself out.’

‘It’s no trouble,’ says James, but Frank shakes his head.

‘I’ll do it,’ he says again, and the shadows are back under his eyes. ‘Thank you.’

Dumbly, James hands over the cloth. An opportunity has passed, he thinks, but he’s not sure what or when.

He watches Frank attend to himself – thoroughly but mechanically – and flushes when Frank catches him looking. He turns away, smoothing a hand down his gown. Astonishingly, he’s managed not to stain it with their exertions, and he feels a stab of disappointment at the thought.

When he turns back around, he sees Frank reach for his small-clothes. He winces a little as he stretches, and James reaches for him before he knows what he is about.

‘Are you - ’

Frank moves out of James’s reach – not hastily, but with a deliberate gentleness that strikes James as infinitely worse. ‘I’m perfectly well.’ His eyes meet James and he says, with the glimmer of humour: ‘I’ll feel this tomorrow.’

James smiles at him, tentatively. ‘Was it too - ’

‘No.’ The response is immediate. ‘No, it was exactly what I - ’ Frank pauses and seems to consider and reject a thousand phrases before he says, with decision: ‘Exactly what I needed.’

James nods and puts his hands behind his back. He cannot quite trust himself around this man who is now putting himself back into his clothes and moving farther away with every passing second. ‘I am glad.’

Frank is putting on his domino. He finds his mask and jams it into a pocket, standing for a moment before turning to face James. He should have put on the mask, thinks James; he can see a thousand feelings scud over his beautiful weary face like storm-clouds fleeing lightning. Frank passes his tongue over his lips once before saying ‘Thank you.’ And then, softly, and with infinite sadness: ‘Thank you, James.’

For a mad moment James wants to tell Frank that he has been making use of his true name, that James has made him free of it, title clear. But Frank is a stranger, and the set of his shoulders and the weight behind his eyes says that he is gone though he is here. So James dredges up his most glittering ballroom smile, shrugs extravagantly and says ‘ _Prego._ ’

Frank flinches with his whole body, and James is pleased to see it. ‘Can you find your way out?’

Frank nods, jerkily. ‘Yes.’

‘ _Ebbene_ ,’ says James, ‘ _grazie mille, signore_.’

‘ _Prego_ ,’ says Frank, and James violently hates the soft sound of the word in his mouth.

‘You are learning well,’ he says.

Frank nods. ‘It’s been an instructive evening.’

It has indeed. ‘I wish you a good night, then, and a pleasant Carnevale.’

Frank nods again, turns on his heel and slips out.

* * *

It is a bare few weeks later that James is sitting in his box applauding the gallant veterans of the Ross expedition. There is Sir James, strapping and with his shining mane of auburn hair. He turns, tugs up the man sitting next to him. Sturdy, with a lined face ducked bashfully as he receives applause.

 _Frank_ , James thinks as he applauds, _oh, Frank, you weren’t even_ trying _to disguise yourself, were you?_

He sees Frank’s face as Sir James whispers in his ear. _Well, that answers_ that _question_ , he thinks, and takes a resolute breath.

* * *

‘I thought Sir James Ross could be … thusly honoured,’ says Sir John.

‘Hear, hear,’ says James. Frank – Francis – is staring ahead of him, the picture of poisonous despondency.

‘Would that he were here now,’ continues James and raises his glass, ‘but for being a newlywed, of course.’

A hundred expressions thunder across Francis’s face before his lips twist into a smile at once tragic and mortified and rueful. ‘He’ll be very pleased,’ says Francis, in a pained rasp. His eye slides off James.

 _Wrong hair_ , thinks James, watching him drain his glass, _wrong country, wrong_ James.

At the bottom of his trunk lies his flame-coloured wig. _I should have dropped you in the canals_ , he thinks.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr handle is [itsevidentvery](https://itsevidentvery.tumblr.com/) if you'd like to come yell with me there.
> 
> If anyone wants to yell at me about my Italian usage, please please do so.
> 
> I think the story is pretty complete as a stand-alone but - because I have no integrity - I am going to continue it, in separate stories so you needn't bother with the rest if you don't fancy it. I will fix this! I promise!
> 
> A handy-dandy rebloggable link for this fic is [here](https://itsevidentvery.tumblr.com/post/624814140270280704/carnevale-anactoriatalksback-the-terror-tv) if you are so inclined.


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